At the beginning of Diderot's Encyclopedie is this dictum: In the construction of machines, engineers should look to monsters for inspiration. But eighteenth-century engineers looked instead to man, and built automatons. Charmingly attired mechanical men and women were presented at court like visiting dignitaries or captured savages. The Musician, the Writer, and the Draughtsman of Jaquet-Droz fascinated royal and working class spectators, as did Kempelen's false automaton the Chess Player, whose machinery included a live man. Genuine or fake, these figures inaugurated an age that is now producing astonishing results: the age of artificial intelligence.
p. 78
Roland Carerra. 1985
